It’s the final month of the NBA season and the Miami Heat are up to their old tricks. Only, it’s hard to know which trick, exactly, they are trying to pull.
Even for this unpredictable motley crew, this win-11-of-14-but-then-lose-three-straight-including-an-egg-against-the-deeply-unserious-Wizards business is a new addition to their bag of tricks.
Never let them know your next move? Playing possum? Nobody knows, but maybe that stench isn’t an unfed rabbit hiding in a hat for the last five months. Maybe the Heat just stink.
Subtract stretches of nine wins in 11 games and 11 wins in 14 games from the resume and the Heat are 15-24 this season. Their point differential this season is closer to the Houston Rockets than the Orlando Magic.
The Miami Heat have lost three straight games for the first time since their January swoon. One of Miami's stars is most at fault, while three role players have surprisingly thrived.
Is this a fair way to evaluate a Heat team that made a run to the Finals as the eighth seed last season? I. Don’t. Know. Trying to figure out the Heat is like being in the pods on Love Is Blind. Every time you think you know who they are, they show a different side of themselves (and that side doesn't always look like Megan Fox).
What I do know is that the Heat have lost three in a row and are at risk of making it four when the reigning champion Denver Nuggets come to Kaseya Center on Wednesday night. Players and coaches aren’t panicked or desperate the way they were during their seven-game losing streak in January, but they are concerned.
“This game is just very humbling," Jimmy Butler said after Sunday night’s disaster. "If you don't come out with the right mindset, this is what will happen and continue to happen."
Drilling down further, there are tangible things the Heat’s star players can do to steady things for the stretch run. To analyze that, we’ll go back to a classic Stock Watch framework. Here are two players whose stock is rising, and one whose is falling.